


Saudade

by unscriptedemily



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alchemy, Bitterness, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Loss of Powers, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post Promised Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unscriptedemily/pseuds/unscriptedemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I keep expecting it to work. You know? Like one day I’ll clap my hands and it’ll be there again, like… fuck. Like…”<br/>“I know.” Roy rests his cheek against the top of Ed’s head, hugs him a little tighter. “God, Ed, I know. I’m sorry.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saudade

**Author's Note:**

> Royed week day 5! Prompts: Crossover or **Alchemy**.   
>  I literally just finished writing this and it's 11:08pm exactly. I need to organise my writing time more efficiently so I don't keep having to grab moments here and there between all my coursework, sigh. :((  
> Anyway, hope you enjoy! this one is pretty angsty, but it's also kind of hopeful, which is my _jam_. 
> 
> (Saudade: a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.)

 

Losing his alchemy was alright, at first.

 It had happened so goddamn fast; the gate and the sudden fleeting ice-cold-bucket-of-water feeling and _Al_ , that Ed hadn’t really had time to think _ouch_. To think about the new, gnawing hole in the centre of him where his alchemy used to be.  

Now, it’s worse. It isn’t as though he regrets it; he’d do it again in a heartbeat, in the space of a blink he’d sacrifice it all and more and every time he looks at Al- warm, human, smiling, _perfect_ \- his conviction becomes a little stronger. He’d do it again, and it was _more_ than worth it.

But even so, he finds himself, from time to time, in the early hours of darkness when the guilt and the shame catches up with him, pressing his palms together in the darkness. Holding his breath and hating himself for how the hope burns him from the inside out.

The first time was just hours after they’d won, after he’d stepped through the gate with Al leaning against him, heart so full and head _buzzing_ , to return to familiar faces crumpled with relief and hands grabbing them, supporting them, and Armstrong bursting into tears in the background.   
After being rushed to the hospital, Al’s bones alarmingly visible through his skin, his heartbeat faint but _strong_ , Ed had sat there at his sleeping brother’s bedside, as his heartbeat slowed and trepidation churned his guts to pieces, and– clapped.

No familiar blue-white spark, no rush of power, no final fucking miracle, just a hollow, empty, echoing _space_ in the place of what had been. His talent, his damn party trick, his genius fucking power. Gone.

And from the other side of the wall, Roy’s faint, weary voice had drifted in.

“Did it work?”

 

Ed had smiled, bitterly, and he remembered once again how _in love_ he was with Roy Fucking Mustang. Something else to add to the list of things he would never have, he supposed.

“No,” he’d replied, and blamed the crack in his voice on exhaustion.

“There’s a philosopher’s stone in here, if you want to try making a wish,” Roy had offered after a pause, and for a split second Ed’s heart had _leapt_ before crashing and burning in a heap of tangled scrap metal and ashy debris.

“Thanks,” he’d said, “but no. You’ll need it to see the massive stack of paperwork Hawkeye’s got you as a get well present.” What he meant was _take the stone, dumbass, and get on with fixing the goddamn country like you promised._ Roy had seemed to understand the sentiment, because he’d fallen silent, and for a minute all Ed could hear was the gentle rustle of the wind ruffling the gauze curtains, and the small snippets of conversation from the soldiers working to quench the fires still blazing outside.

Then Roy said, very quietly, and very seriously, “I’m sorry, Ed.”

Al’s cheekbones were threatening to break through his skin; his breathing came slow and even; his hand, limp on top of the covers, was tiny and thin and so beautifully warm and Ed had never been so simultaneously overjoyed and miserable in his life.

“Yeah.” he said, and then they were quiet.

 

***

Now, Roy sits up slowly beside him, shifting the covers away from them as he rubs one hand over his eyes and uses the other to brush a strand of hair from Ed’s face.

“You’re freezing, love, how long have you been sitting here?” His voice is gravelly with sleep, tired and rough and very, very warm. Ed leans into his touch, staring down at his hands. They are no longer mismatched metal and flesh. The automail scars remain, stretching across his shoulder, ribs and part of his collarbone- but the automail that goes with it is gone. Sometimes his arm feels heavy, like it’s metal again, and he can always tell when it’s about to rain. Phantom pains, like what he used to get when he first lost his arm. Except now, it’s in reverse. Funny, that.

“’Bout an hour. Sorry. Go back to sleep.” He knows that Roy won’t, of course.  Stubborn bastard.

He always insists on staying up, and Ed can’t say he’s not intensely glad. Used to be that he’d wake up from a nightmare straight back into one; that his real life was just as bad as the one he lived when he was asleep. Now, he wakes up cold and sweating and Roy is there, turning on the lights and reminding him that it’s different, now. Leading him through the worst of it and out the other side.   
Now, though the nightmares come as frequently as ever- and they all-too-often feature some form of alchemy, as if his own subconscious is taunting him, dangling it in front of him like a fucking carrot on a stick- he has someone there to stroke his hair and hold him as he sits there shaking, numb, half-drowned in death and guilt.

It’s more than he deserves, he knows that. For some reason, Roy doesn’t seem to think that at all.

He tugs Ed gently towards him, surrounds him with the familiar, comforting Roy-smell, and Ed manages to close his eyes, tear them away from the outline of his hands, lying loosely in his lap. They sit there, for a while, wrapped up in the dark and each other, and finally Ed says:

“I keep expecting it to work. You know? Like one day I’ll clap my hands and it’ll be there again, like… fuck. Like…”

“I know.” Roy rests his cheek against the top of Ed’s head, hugs him tighter. “God, Ed, I know. I’m sorry.”

Ed nods, clenching and unclenching his fists. “It’s worth it,” he says, and Roy kisses the side of his head. “I’d do it again. Without even hesitating. It just…it doesn’t make it any easier.”

“One day,” Roy promises, “one day we’ll work it out. You…just because you don’t have your alchemy anymore doesn’t mean you aren’t stronger, more brilliant, more wise, than you’ve ever been before. We’ll find a way, love. Until then, you’re still _you_. And I love you, for what it’s worth.”

Ed’s grin is wobbling a little around the edges; why is he so fucking susceptible to Roy’s damn _sap_?

“Why are you so _mushy_?” he asks, and flops down onto the pillows, pulling Roy with him. “Okay. Okay. I love you too, you sappy bastard. One day.”

“One day,” agrees Roy, and Ed slings a leg over his side, burying his face in his chest. _One day_. Mmm. Roy is always so _warm_ , like he’s got a little fire inside him that never goes out.

“Alright.” Ed mumbles, “No more midnight moping. You gotta get your sleep. Got a country to run.”

“I _do_ need my beauty sleep more than ever, now that I’ve won the presidency,” muses Roy, “but actually, I’m more concerned about _you_.”

“Of course you are, sappy dumbass. Shut up an’ go to sleep,” says Ed, and he feels Roy’s laugh rumble all the way through him. He’s lucky, and also stupid, because who needs _alchemy_ when you’ve got a boyfriend like this and a brother, alive and well and with a great potential to take over the world with the army of cats he’s currently recruiting.   
Maybe he’ll get it back, one day. And maybe he won’t.   
But really , it doesn’t matter what happens, so long as he’s got this to come back to at the end of it all.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
